Can plants get scared? Or help fight depression? New research suggests 'yes'

Researchers have unearthed some interesting new features of how plants work and what they mean for people - especially gardeners.

New studies show that plants react to threats much in the way that fear motivates people and that plants can reduce depression and lead to longer life spans.

"Scaring" soybeans

The finding comes from Penn State University, where researcher Sally Mackenzie and her team found that soybeans can be genetically fooled into sensing that they're under attack. In response, the "threatened" soybeans grew better and produced up to 14 percent more beans.

Mackenzie, a professor of biology and plant science, fooled the soybeans by identifying and disabling a gene - known as MSH1 - that's involved in monitoring for stresses.

With MSH1 out of action, the soybeans reacted as if they were dealing with drought, cold, heat, extreme light, and a host of threats all at the same time, even though the actual growing conditions were fine.

The result was hyper-performance - much how humans kick into high gear when faced with a stressful or fearful situation.

What's more, Mackenzie found that the benefits carried into ensuing generations and can be deployed in any crop, since MSH1 is a gene that all plants have. Her research group already has shown the technique works in tomatoes and sorghum.

"What it means is that we can take our very best crop varieties and possibly get more out of them and make them more resilient with a fairly straightforward manipulation," Mackenzie says.

Depression-fighting plants

Green space has a calming effect on people, according to a new Philadelphia study.

Plants' effect on depression and mental health comes from a project in Philadelphia, where researchers identified 541 urban vacant lots, then divided them into three groups.

In one-third of them, the lots were cleaned of trash and debris, then grass and trees were planted and fencing was installed.

In another one-third, trash was removed, and minor maintenance was done, but nothing was planted.

And in the remaining one-third, nothing was done.

More than 400 adult residents living near the lots got mental-health assessments at the beginning of the project, then 342 of them were re-interviewed 18 months later after the work was done.

The result? Those living near the greened lots experienced a 41 percent drop in "depressive feelings" and a 51 percent drop in feelings of worthlessness compared to those where no improvements were done.

"Performing simple interventions to the neighborhood environment has an impact on health," says Dr. Eugenia South, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. "The fact that it's green space, and not, say, a parking lot, is important."

She adds that greening also increases social connections, relaxes mental fatigue, and helps people cope better with general life stresses.

South's team is working with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to green more lots.

She says other cities have expressed interest, given that it costs an average of only $1,600 to green an abandoned lot and $180 a year to maintain it.

Garden and live to be 100?

Working in the garden may help us live longer.

Author/explorer Dan Buettner devotes his career to figuring out what creates a long life, and he's identified five places where people live longer than anywhere: Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; Loma Linda, California; and Sardinia, Italy.

Buettner says these so-called "blue zones" have several commonalities, such as social support networks, daily exercise, and plant-based diets.

However, he says they all have something else in common - the people garden well into old age.

"If you garden, you're getting some low-intensity physical activity most days, and you tend to work routinely," Buettner told the BBC in a December 2018 report.

Dr. Bradley Willcox, a University of Hawaii researcher who studies centenarians in Okinawa (which has a higher percentage of them than any other place), says there's more to it than just the exercise or the fresh, healthy produce that results.

"In Okinawa, they say that anybody who grows old healthfully needs an ikigai, or reason for living," he says. "Gardening gives you that something to get up for every day."

Researchers are making progress in finding a solution to the dreaded rose rosette disease, an increasingly common killer that potentially affects all roses, including Knock Out and the many new introductions that defeat the previous rosy disease bane, black spot.

Researchers in four states are evaluating hundreds of roses for natural resistance to rose rosette and already have zeroed in on about 30 that show promise.

The goal is to breed resistance genetics into a new generation of roses, since there's currently no good, easy way to control or prevent this viral disease.

Rose rosette disease is transmitted by tiny eriophyid mites. Plants show symptoms such as excessive thorns, malformed leaves and flowers, and stems that fuse together.

Plants usually struggle for two or three years before dying, according to the new Rose Rosette website, which details more on the disease and how to deal with it.

Pollinators are OK with "nativars"

"Nativars" like this 'Golden Fleece' goldenrod are usually as attractive to pollinators as wild forms of the same plant, new Delaware research shows.

Gardeners who are focusing on planting to help bees and other pollinators often lean toward the straight species of native plants because the suspicion is pollinators prefer those to "nativars" - varieties of natives that have been bred or selected for aesthetic traits such as compact size or new colors.

The main exception is that pollinators aren't as attracted to nativars that have dark leaves - most likely because the pigment that causes the darkening (anthocyanin) apparently is distasteful to them.

The researchers also found that in some cases, nativars were more attractive to pollinators than the wild form.

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